


Full Circle

by orphan_account



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: (for a while anyway), Angst, Changes to the Ending, Low Chaos Corvo, Low Chaos Ending, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, UST, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:50:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The room spins, blurs in gleaming pearl and ink shadows, whirls in some wickedly Serkonan fashion of dance, bleeding black top to bottom with the inevitable droop of eyelids, and Teague believes, in this moment of fleeting consciousness, that there is a great tentacle ensnaring his ankle and drawing him down, down.</p><p>Spirits preserve him, he sprawls onto terra firma. </p><p>It's hardly fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Divine Joke

**Author's Note:**

> fill for the dishonored kink meme, as a response to a request for more martin.  
> set in the low chaos ending, i'm taking liberties with a few details -- the largest clearly being martin's fate. slow burn to come, with much UST and loathing and angst, etc etc.

The set-up had been rather obvious, now that he considers it:

 _An aristocrat, admiral, and clergyman walk into a lighthouse_.

Teague wonders, bitterly, if he had walked right into this divine joke, had sealed his fate the instant he stepped foot on the vessel bound for Kingsparrow Island, earning this end through an addictive cocktail comprised of two parts hubris and one part fear.

He's acutely aware of the cold blade hidden in his boot pressing against his calf through twill, tempered steel cold like betrayal, subversion of Havelock's design. After all, Farley had been the grand architect of this godforsaken coup, Teague simply the mouthpiece distorting the admiral's lies into pious motivation, garnishing falsehoods with tact and charm. They've stirred up leagues upon leagues of shit, condemned socialites and politicians left and right, and at the end of one terrifically fucked up train of events, nothing's been for the empire. Everything is and has been for themselves, their quaint little triumvirate, and yet Teague will still come full circle – born into nothing and cosigned to nothing in death – by the curtain's draw.

(But he won't be seeing red velvet just yet, no. Something's spared him the fate which has rendered Pendleton into scant more than a sack of idle, cooling blue-blood slumped over in his chair, jackknifed over one polished arm, and damned if Teague's not taking it as a sign.)

He pretends he carries the weapon out of a soul deep need to bring justice and not the cowardice and suspicion that has strung him along this downward spiral of murder, of treason. Sheer recrimination after years of penance paid in piety and blood. With this in mind, Teague knows he should, by all accounts, join Treavor in oblivion, but old Samuel, with his eager tongue and decrepit sensibilities, is right: Teague is a snake. And now he bides his time, a specious facsimile of murder dealt and to be exacted in turn, as Havelock mutters volumes on how this entire mess is _Teague's_ fault – the delusional, duplicitous _fuck_. He tries to bridle his temper with the knowledge Havelock will be silenced soon enough, that in moments he'll put that sea dog down and hack out his tongue and shove it somewhere gloriously profane, but his teeth slot and grind nevertheless.  
  
Naturally, Havelock would meet his demise and, as it were, Teague would not be the one to dirty his hands with it. Not worthy of the pleasure, so it seemed.

Teague doesn't hear footsteps when _he_ arrives, only feels the shadow of death passing over him, colder than delta wind. He doesn't even realize that another person has entered the room until the admiral addresses a third party, back from the dead and radiating the Void in baleful silence.  
  
Havelock laments his character, how it pales in comparison to their resident assassin's or some maudlin shit like that, but Teague can't hear much over the rhythmic crash of blood in his ears, loud as waves in a midsummer storm. He's running currents all through his skin, humming with anxiety, electricity, and maybe he'd wax poetic on a Wall of Light metaphor, but to be honest, Teague's too much of dark, ugly, twisted little husk of a man for that crock.  
  
The right side of face is plastered with cold sweat half to the polished oak table and half to the map spanning the length of the wood furnishing, soaked in roux and wine from where plates and glasses have surrendered their contents. It smells deceivingly alluring here, but Teague supposes that's only because Pendleton's poisoned body has yet to rot.  
  
His eyes crack open and his breath fogs the veneered surface. Fades. It comes and goes, steady and even. Teague loses track of how many times he's witnessed this indicant of life unwisely spared when he hears the familiar sound of a blade sliding into a body, ringing metal and the slick breach of skin and bone, finally punctuated by the crack of ignited gunpowder and the wet splatter of blood mottling the walls. It's a quick execution. Precise.  
  
It's all typical Corvo, really.  
  
Well.  
  
The Corvo they created, anyway.

Havelock hits the floor with a note harsher than any produced by Holger's Device. It's rather beautiful, in a morbid sort of way; Teague finds himself absently wishing for an audiograph of the sound, his own little lullaby for the nights to come – provided, of course, that Corvo doesn't catch on to the fact that one third of the Loyalist's iron triangle still draws breath, and the one who had been so damn ready to suggest lacing his drink with a nightshade-based toxicant, no less.

(There's a wonderful irony to be found by someone in his position, across from Pendleton's limp corpse, but Teague starves his cynicism.)

Provided, of course, that he doesn't raise a pistol to his temple the minute he escapes.

A light, barely audible scape of metal against marble and the tell-tale jangle of keys in hand followed by a desperate cry torn raw and thin by emotion, a cry of _Emily_ , stretching soft as hastened footfalls trail away from the main atrium and towards a euphonious shriek, _Corvo_ , marks his window of opportunity.

Teague waits a dozen sporadic heartbeats before straightening up and slipping out of his seat, a series of vertebrae popping into alignment with each movement and every damn one a gunshot in a quiet as delicate as the common man's faith. The whole of him is covered in a patina of sweat, beads rolling down the back of his neck and spattered over his forehead. Heart a bronze hammer swathed in cotton, pounding dull in his ears and throat and chest and fingers, he stares down the hallway that will lead him out and away from a man who undoubtedly wants his blood seeping into the floorboards, but Teague's boots stutter in a failed attempt at closing the distance between he and that one last threshold, because he _knows_ what he deserves and it sure as the Void isn't another second chance.

Sighing tersely through his nose, he wills himself forward, breaking into a frenzied rush after the initial few ungainly steps. Teague's hand extends for the door, fingertips a hair's breadth from the glinting handle, and he's so damn _close_ – to _what_ , exactly, he's not sure, but what is a strategist if not one for thinking on his feet? – when a burst of pain flares out over a needlepoint in his neck, consuming the skin with an insufferable heat, betraying the frigid metal barb piercing the starch of his collar and lodging itself deep in the muscle of his nape.

Teague shouts, in both surprise and hurt, and receives only the echo of his own pathetic state in response. He frantically makes to remove the dart, but his arms only twitch and hang leaden at his sides, knees buckling as fast beneath him as the Empire would've crumbled under the Loyalist's – _Havelock's_ – reign. The room spins, blurs in gleaming pearl and ink shadows, whirls in some wickedly Serkonan fashion of dance, bleeding black top to bottom with the inevitable droop of eyelids, and Teague believes, in this moment of fleeting consciousness, that there is a great tentacle ensnaring his ankle and drawing him down, _down_.

Spirits preserve him, he sprawls onto _terra firma_.

It's hardly fair. 


	2. Like Old Times

When Teague comes to, lids ascending to different degrees of open, left eye swollen and purpled with congealed blood and burst capillaries, it is to various aches that leave him feeling less like the brilliant ascetic he knows himself to be and more like low priority cargo. He groans for the aridity in his throat and the godawful taste in his mouth, elements rotten, cobwebby and stale, the faint, soured tang of blood clinging to his teeth. The fixtures overhead bathe the space in a muted glow, acclimating eyes yet sensitive to the light spilling over austere furnishings but still more than capable of figuring out where he's been installed, what's awaiting him – unfortunate certainties along those lines.

After all, this isn't his first time in prison.

That said, it could be worse. He could be in Coldridge, all things considered, but a perfunctory glance around the dungeon enlightens him to the contrary. This is Dunwall Tower. Teague sees it in the impeccable masonry, in the abandonment of cells in favor of cast-iron shackles, in the rat tally humbled by that of an actual penitentiary, and wonders what past act of grace has earned him this modicum of clemency. Surely if he had awakened in Coldridge, Teague would've found himself with grievances more imaginative and plentiful than a few simple bruises and cuffed appendages, would be listening to the howling screams of men tortured by tool and conscience both instead of the lonely rattle of chains tethering him to the wall.

His hair greasy with old sweat, strands coming loose from a styled coif and falling into his brow, Teague rests the back of his head against the dank brickwork with a gentle thud, hissing at the soreness blossoming in his neck from where the sleeping dart had penetrated the skin and been crudely removed. Removed, in fact, like the dagger that had previously tucked into his boot, as with several other accoutrements – his belt, gloves, suspenders. All gone. Teague laughs wryly under his breath.

Leave it Corvo to be one thorough, paranoid bastard.

Not that he doesn't have reason to be, what with everything the poor sod's been through this past year. Teague's still surprised that the Empire's former – and most likely to be reinstated – Royal Protector abstained from creating a body pile to dwarf the Lighthouse in sheer size and caliber when anyone with a half a brain could identify the bitterness, the ever-expanding appetite for revenge, festering in his gaze. Brushing the work-roughened pads of his fingers solemnly over the puncture hole in his neck, he's even more surprised to think Corvo's spared him.

Strange as it sounds, Teague's not quite grateful.

He supposes it's to be expected of a man who stared at his glass of poison at such a length that, once the effects began to manifest in the fool seated across from him, he ultimately had no choice but to play along, missing that one golden fucking opportunity to end it all and die with at least some semblance of honor, of agency.

In a way, it seems Teague's prospective end is the cruelest of the three. Unfitting, perhaps.

He drifts back to sleep reciting the word of the Abbey in his head and lingering on thoughts of Havelock's cattle call outside the Hound Pits, Lydia's terrified cry as Wallace's body crumples to the ground sundering his focus at start of the final Stricture, reverberating stridently in his ears and wresting him from the illusion of faith with nitroglycerin hysterics, discord and damnation, and Teague wants nothing more than a drink to calm his fraying, miserable nerves now as he'd had then.

Enough to drown himself in would suffice.

#

_What a sight you are in that mask. I know who you are and what you're here to do. And I can help!_

_Help_ , in retrospect, was a term used looser than the most seasoned whore at the Golden Cat.

Miles of moral, economical, _societal_ rungs beneath him and Teague couldn't – _can't_ – even help himself.

#

Hours pass, and emerging from the gloom on audible heels and startling Teague from a respite as light as Whitecliff mist is none other than Corvo Attano, bringing him his first meal and a bucket – Teague ascertains in a couple bleary-eyed moments, blinking back the film of sleep – to serve as an amenity. Plain-faced and donning apathy, he throws the latter item to the ground at Teague's right, the rusted handle knocking at its wooden sides before clattering against the stone floor unceremoniously. A dull, warped tray balancing bowl and cup still remains in Corvo's other hand, and Teague ignores how hunger contorts his gut, opting to treat this whole ordeal as a fast while in judicious company.

The silence is deafening when their eyes interlock, palettes land and sea, naturally at odds, and suddenly there's a tension so palpable between them that it leaves little to no room for air. They've been in this position before, Teague in shackles, Corvo standing a mere feet in front of him, an intrinsic factor in his survival, and for all the similarities betwixt and between, somehow Teague can't shake the feeling things will play out far, far different this time around.

“Just like old times, right, Corvo?” He asks glibly, voice rough with disuse. Teague draws a knee to his chest and rests a forearm over the peak of it, making no attempt to cajole his one-time savior with good humor or toadying smiles, speaking only out of a need to drain himself of the multifaceted turmoil he's swelling with, risking a sweeping sense of devastation otherwise. “Well, can't say I thought–”

“No one's asked you to say anything.”

Teague reels from the immediacy of the answer, the barely contained spite behind level speech, blinking as Corvo briefly stoops to set the tray down, rising to his full height and nudging it inches forward with the scuffed toe of his boot. Teague doesn't break from his idleness, the fine lines scoring his face pronounced by grease and dirt as his expression turns saturnine, and tries for a chance at effectual dialogue with a disparate approach.

“No, they haven't. Not yet, anyway." He cocks his head appraisingly. "But you wouldn't keep me alive if you didn't want something from me. So what is it then, a confession? Humiliation? Torture?” His brow cinches tight and low. “Influence over the Abbey? Ah, best that isn't the case, Corvo, 'cause no one's going to listen to me once word gets out about Havelock and Pendleton. Might as well give me the Brand now, save us some time.”

A protracted cessation. Taciturn as the day they met, Corvo's stare suggests nothing has riled him, though he clearly expects more, which he does promptly receive, Teague not believing for one second that he'll have much non-violent contact after this one-sided tête-à-tête and planning to make the most of it, dreading the agonizingly slow descent into madness that is isolation.

The potential physical horrors tear at him, too, albeit as an afterthought. The Insurrection did a great deal more than aggrandize farmers into highwaymen and criminals into war heroes; the underbelly bore scars and splintered bones and skin singed from sinew like trophies, bled ill-fated patriotism and a crimson that stained the sea foam. The Insurrection culled the boys from the men.

Teague knows suffering and he knows which flavor has him so inclined.

“Anyway, there's a sweet little girl on the throne right now and you step away from her to mess around in this dump?” He snorts. “I'm flattered.”

And that incites a response, just as Teague expected. A tumult surfaces in Corvo's eyes, a tumult in gray, the color of storm heads in a tempest, and it sucks him into a vacuum, deprives him of sound for a moment as he forgets himself, his pride, his wit.

“If it weren't for Emily's good word, you'd have joined your friends by now.”

_Emily's good word_. Now there was something to look into, should Corvo's temper permit it. “If I'm not mistaken, they were your friends, too. Somewhere along the line.” Teague swears he can hear Corvo's teeth gnash from where he sits and corrects himself near instantaneously, supplying a mirthless chuckle. “Guess things change when friends try to poison each other, hm? Believe me when I say I know where you're coming from.”

“You were supposed to be a devout man.”

The comment, while delivered without particular edge, is – well. Teague cannot explain precisely just _how_ backhanded it is. Nor can he articulate the reason as to why it sits so poorly with him, why it stirs the vehemence from his liver when he's well aware of how he's fallen and just how far. It's not quite an accusation so much as it is the truth, but it still feels like he's been slighted in the worst way, as if such a statement was _uncalled_ for and therefore merits the surge of pique streaming fire through his veins.

Underneath the gunpowder haze of fury, however, Teague absently attributes everything to the fact that a fucking _witch_ , an agent of the Outsider and practitioner of black magic, a man _gagging_ for anathema if not the damn pyre, is impugning upon his faith, and as with any ecclesiastic, it guides his tongue to retaliation.

“And you were supposed to protect Jessamine Kaldwin. Funny how a bit of outside ambition can ruin a man's intentions, eh, boyo?”

Corvo seethes and crackles like an arc pylon, chin lowering fractions to his chest, and that faint movement in of itself casts an array of darkness over the hollows of his eyes and under the jut of his cheekbones, every cut of shadow stretching over sockets and enhancing the innate swarthiness of his skin, and Teague thinks that this man – this _abomination_ in the eyes of the Abbey – will never look so much of death in that mask as he does now. He anticipates the brutal response even before Corvo takes the first step forward, but regardless of his foresight, Teague refuses to wince, suppressing a cringe when Corvo heaves him up onto his heels by the collar and smashes his knuckles once, twice into the dip of Teague's temple, setting feathered specks of red and gold spiraling into his teetering sight.

“You listen and you listen well, Martin,” Corvo begins darkly, hands tight with fistfuls of Teague's soiled coat. Teague's head rolls back slightly, a trickle of blood sluicing down the side of his face, and he can vaguely pick out notes of fruit on Corvo's breath as he goes on. “I've shown you mercy out of respect for Emily's wishes, and out of respect for the man I once thought you were. Don't think I won't retract that offer if I see fit. Now, the plague won't be in Gristol much longer, not with Piero and Sokolov working on an antidote, but you so much as give me cause to, and I will seek out a horde of rats for the sole purpose of watching them strip the flesh from your bones.”

“All that for me?” Teague grits out through his teeth, forcing a pained grin as he cranes his neck just enough to match Corvo's glower. “Heh, you certainly know how to make a man feel special.”

Corvo releases him with an air of disgust and Teague stumbles into the wall, slamming the base of his skull into the ashlar before toppling over, chains rattling loudly about him, grating. He narrowly avoids collapsing onto the proffered tray and its meager rations, his sight vignetted and cloudy, head pounding with a slew of trauma. All the while, Corvo's disappears sometime in between the wobbling dungeon confines and the vicious throbbing in his temple and the tidal wave of nausea threatening to escape his person by fullisade.

Teague gropes for the bucket in this subterranean umbra and empties himself of the poison he wishes he drank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, thank you for reading/supporting/etc!
> 
> second, i'm looking for someone to beta my writing, if anyone's interested?


End file.
